I got hooked two years ago when my mom got me a Phal at Giant Eagle for my 11th birthday. Then I got more, killed them all, and tried again!

Easy question.

I went to an orchid show in Baltimore, waay back.
I followed up with a visit to Kensington Orchids
Merritt Huntington convinced me to join the AOS.

My first AOS membership -- 1978.

--Stitz--

Honeymoon, Hawaii, shipped, survived, re-bloomed. The rest is history.

Heth, I see the parent issue, they get nervous at anything a 13-year-old does. They'll grow out of it.

January 2002, I quit SMOKING!!!

To occupy my time that January I bought a small light cart to grow outdoor/dirt seedlings. Happened to be in a box store and bought myself a lipstick Phal 'Happy Girl' to celebrate my birthday. Converted from dirt seedlings to orchids over the next 6-12 months, killed boatloads over the next 7 years trying all different genera.

Lost over 150 this spring including the 'Happy Girl ;-(, cleaned up and restarted in April and now have about 50, mostly seedlings at this point. Plan to stay at around 50-75, we'll see.

My wife is pretty supportive and has bought me a "real" light cart and a 55 gal aquarium/terrarium set-up for different occasions.

Bob

Nick, that was the funniest post I read today - really needed that - orchids are supposed to be an aphrodysiac.

Ironically, my mom brought 2 orchds (noid dendorium)home from a grocery store and I managed to remember to water them and eventually they bloomed (still have one from 10 years ago). After killing nearly 10's of them (phals do not like full sun or a swamp) - I finally got it right about 4 years ago.

A girl I met at work also kept some dilapitated ones on her window sill and I watered them for her and got some dates out of the interaction - and now we are engaged 4 years later (the plants are dead) but as much as she will never admitt it - she enjoyes buying orchids about 10% as much as I do.

So now my mom and fiance remind me I have way too many orchids and if I by one more I am homeless....so I am in the market for an orchid addict to swap plants, but the ladies won't let me make plant friends.

I saw a sign on the back of a pickup truck:

Fishing is not a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that.

Remind the ladies that orchids also fall into that category.

Nick

Bought a few hard cane dendrobiums at the grocery store 15 years ago. They languished for years out in the trees in Miami with no flowers but never died, along with a cattleya my husband got from his aunt about 20 years ago.
In 2004 I decided to see if we could get them to bloom.
Began to fertilize and give more light---amazing!! Joined an orchid club a few years later and now I have a couple hundred. Killed about 25---on the way to becoming a "grower".
Jan

i started after reviving a rescue from home depot about 5 years ago. then i got a cymbidium from a grocery store; then discovered ebay; then the local orchid society!
nick, another great, funny story. if you you put all your posts together, we would have a very funny book on orchids. bet you it would be a best seller!!
sue.

3 years ago about this time, I bought a noid now, as I threw away the tag , generic phal white with purple spots it was in bloom when I threw it in a great big clay pot using medium bark, put it in a window over the kitchen sink, where it was daily steamed from the boiling foods that we drained, it kept its flowers for 2 months, then I was rather amazed that it could take the abuse, then last year it gave me over 50 flowers that stayed around for 3 months, after that I got the orchid bug, none of the others that I have bought are quite as tough as my first but since I have learned basic proper growing habits I may get the 22 others to bloom this year, if I do I know that I will be hooked for life. I think that we have all been told how hard it is to grow orchids and when you have success it makes you feel rather proud of yourself, of course phals are rather forgiving if you don`t drown them, but I don`t tell other people that, I just let them think I have a green thumb LOL! Deanna

At a wedding we attended in 2001, the tables were decorated with pots of delicate pink Phallies with deeper pink centers. Afterwards, the bride sent one of the orchids home with us.

It took three years for me to learn how to care for that pretty noid, but once it bloomed again (2004) it continued to do so annually. I still have it.

Sc

Hi
1980 neighbor lady gave me ten full grown catts ,phals.
Only thing I'd ever grown on purpose was a peace lily lol. Okay two window boxes with marigolds in Kansas.(Killed those every year)
Hung them in the screenroom where I mostly neglected them. They still grew and flowered in spite of me lol Looking back I'd say that is the reason they survived (chronic overwaterer).
Went to a show spent a fortune and promptly killed those. First heard the word "Epiphyte " lol Went back to water plants as main interest.
Interest resurfaced in mid 90's moved a bunch out to trees to grow "au natural" mostly on an orange tree. Still couldn't get too involved as work kept me away from home during daylight. State whacked the citrus trees down moved a bunch back to SH moved 10 to a Carambola tree .
Would you believe my entire collection are "noids".??
I remember when Marilyn gave the originals and I told her I'd probably kill them . She told me that these kind of orchids are ideal for florida ,Anybody can grow them !!. I guess she must have been right but she did leave out a detail or two for sure lol.
BTW . Wife still thinks they are too expensive , too ugly when not in flower and require WAAAYYY too much care.
I still think they are the worlds most fantastic plants well worth any effort. She loves her HERB garden !!! gary

Moved to Guam when I was 15. Everyone had Dendrobiums growing on coconut husk so I got a couple from people and have been growning ever since. I'm 43 now.

I've always admired orchids, just never thought I could grow them in my environment.

A dear friend in Florida sent me an Epidendrum cutting... and the rest came quite naturally. I wanted to keep my "friendship plant" alive and thriving, so began my quest for cultural information. Along the way, I've collected and been gifted with several more orchids, and I'm doing alright at keeping everyone alive.

I attended my first orchid festival last fall, and came home with a box full of orchids from Oak Hill Gardens.

I have even managed to bloom a young Phal, and re-bloom a larger Phal... I've also managed to root a few Epi cuttings and grow a few Den keikis.

As time goes by, I'm getting better... learning more... and there's always room for just one more plant! I have full support and cooperation from my wonderful husband, who patiently sat through an afternoon at Oak Hill, while I got lost in their beautiful greenhouses! He helps me choose plants, and even enjoys the flowers.

It's a wonderful addition to my gardening hobby, and I anticipate collecting many more orchids in the coming years!

Back when I was a kid in NY, my grandmother's sister had a glass house in her backyard in Brooklyn Heights where she had been growing orchids since about the 1920s. I would go over and help her on an occasional weekend. And after dividing an Epi cochleatum one day, she potted up a piece for me. It quickly died under my growing conditions of freezing cold windowsills.

Jump 10 years, and she had retired to Miami and was happily growing her orchids there. And as newlyweds, my husband and I had been transferred down there as well by coincidence. We had just bought our house and who do you think comes sailing up in a taxi from Miami Beach with the backseat full of orchid plants? Yup, my great-aunt was intent on hooking me, on making me an orchid addict. And she suceeded beyond her wildest dreams. I have grown them everywhere I have lived since, even during my years of work in Central America and now up here in Pensacola.

My great-aunt died about ten years ago at 107 still tending a handful of orchid plants on her windowsill at the assisted-living home. I am still alive with hopefully lots of years to go and lots of orchids to grow.

In 1999 I went to Hawaii and came back with an orchid. Shortly after I came home I visited a local greenhouse that was going out of business and bought 40 more, all different varieties. Many of them died because of an unsuspected insect infection, but I managed to save about 25. They pulled through and eventually bloomed. Now I grow mostly mini and semi-mini catts.

Carol that's a lovely orchid history! About ten years ago I purchased a white phal along with special orchid food from a nice kindly white haired gent at a flea market. Unfortunately it 'DIMPed', but I did have it in bloom for about 6 months. I bought two more, with the same results. When I retired several years later I started reading, determined to grow a few plants. In spite of much reading I've still had many DIMPs, but now manage to have about 100+ reasonably healthy plants. Enough size to the collection so that I almost always have a few bloomers in the favorite rooms of the house. Dends in a kitchen window, phals on the sunporch, an oncid in the bedroom, a few misc genera scattered throughout. A regular BH&G layout without hiring an interior designer! LOL

Nick, I'm married to one of 'those' fishermen. I'll give him the 'better than life or death' line! A fun thread!

Sheila :)

2001 I won the door prize of a blooming white phal. I stuck it in a window and was going to throw it away when done because they were hard to grow.

A year later it rebloomed even with benign neglect.

Bought some out of bloom $5 'chids at the grocery. They thrived and bloomed. I started eliminating plants I was growing under lights and slowly but surely all available places where dedicated to orchids.

Three years ago for Christmas - big greenhouse.

Brooke

The two first orchids I ever saw were an enormous Epidendrum ibaguense with masses of stems and a huge tangle of aerial roots with the most amazing brilliant deep red flowers and an Angraecum sesquipedale (Comet orchid). My first reaction was: how can such things exist; are you sure these things don't come from another planet? I've always been fascinated by the odd, so I guess it starts from there. I now live in Brazil and have learnt that what seems strange in one place is perfectly the norm elsewhere.

I wanted to have red eyed tree frogs and thought an orchid from the other side of the wordl from them would be a good idea in their habitat. It languished and eventually deteriorated away.

Soon after I bought nice hyrbids, and learned how to bloom those. Then I got an Aerangis luteo alba var rhodosticta and rebloomed that exceptionally well, I mounted it and knew species were my thing. Since then, Ive aquired a modest collection of obscure Angraecoids, tiny Lepanthes, and my jewels the cuthbertsonii.

It was 1968. I had finally gotten the credits for a B.A. degree at Humboldt State College up in Arcata, California at the end of the winter quarter and had returned to my parents home in Santa Maria. Had no idea where else to go. Had applied for a job with the USDA as a botanist, as my degree major was Botany. But had not heard anything from them by summer.
My dad kept harping at me to get on and get out. A friend had checked out this job op down in Santa Barbara but did not think it was to his liking but told me about it and maybe it might be what I would like to try. So I went down to the Santa Barbara Orchid Estates and met with Paul Gripp and the rest is history.

Thirty years ago I retired to Florida and went to an orchid show at a local mall and was amazed at the diversity in colors, shapes and sizes of the various genera. I went overboard and joined 7 local societies, where my collection quickly grew from silent auctions, raffles and shows. The monthly social security checks just encouraged the insanity! No more boring days. So much to learn!! There were casualties: learning experiences, frosts and hurricane damage and loss. At peak, I had amassed about 4000 plants, catts and phals in a shade house, and vandas, dendrobes , cymbidiums and intergenerics out in the open. Due to health and reduced mobility, I can no longer care for them and collection is reduced to about 1000. Friends from orchid society come regularly to care for them and I sell the catts as they come into bloom. I have learned a lot in these past 30 years and have enjoyed sharing that knowlege by presenting programs and on several forums. Orchids make such a facinating hobby!!

I have always wanted to grow plants, and in 2003 I transferred to a townhouse that enabled me to do that. I wanted orchids, and it was crazy because I had no idea about their names, growing conditions, hybrid or species, etc etc.
It was fun. Along the way I killed perhaps hundreds, apart from those that committed suicide.
Primarily for my plants, I bought a 5-acre plot in a location 500 meters above sea level. There are almost 5000 of them there now, spread out over about 100 species.
Not one is for sale. Hahaha.

An interesting collection of stories, to be sure! It's always fun to read about how people began their collections, who influenced them, and how far people will go to keep their passion alive!

I should probably mention that I've sent more than one orchid to its death, and I'm sure a good number more will meet their demise as I learn what types grow best in my environment, and my collecting continues.

I find it a fascinating hobby, and am awed at the sheer numbers of different hybrids and species, and at their different modes of growth and natural habitats!

6-7 years ago my husband - we dated then - gave an orchid for Valentine's day. I grew roses and violets, but had no idea about orchids. It was Cochleanthes Lip Blush, and it is alive to this day (lots of abuse, while I was learning) :) A bit crowded, though, with 500 other orchids in the shadehouse ( I did not waste time!)

Back in 2001, I bought a dendrobium for my mom. Her mom grew orchids, so i thought i'd be nice and buy her one thinking she'd like it. She was grateful, but never cared for it. So I took care of it. Bought a little white phal to accompany it. One day I was making a humidity tray for them and when I finished, I realized I was really relaxed. It was then I decided to make orchids my hobby.

8 years and a horticulture degree later, life is good, orchidly speaking. Still have the white phal, though it must be a mule or something because it has always languished next to other thriving phals. Den died long ago.

Hi
Interesting posts. Maybe someone should start one on future plans/ Where does the collection go from here??
I'm seriously downsizing due to age ,physical limitions
interest in other families etc, etc. lol
I have this horrible vision of my whole collection croaking along with me lol gary

On Mother's day, 2008, my wife bought herself a Noid white Phal. from a street vender for $10. I looked at it, felt sorry for it's "cramped up roots", in a plastic cup, and promptly put it in a 12'clay pot,(with potting soil). The next day, she mentioned it was an Orchid, so it was off to Lowes for some bark. Today, it sits proudly with about 80 others, and still blooms with the best.

I was tired of growing all the "easy" houseplants and wanted something more challenging. A friend gave me 4 little orchid tubes with seedlings (a Catt, a Dend, an Onc and a Vanda) from Singapore just before I retired. After a few false starts, they are thriving and have tripled in size. Since then I have the "bug" and bought some out of bloom Phals at Home Depot. They did fine too. So then I bought some out of bloom Dends and a Paph which are doing fine also. The Phals just won't stop blooming! I leave the spike on and they grow new florferous branches, it's amazing!

Florrie

I'm a total newbie when it comes to Orchids, but I'd always wanted to try my hand at them since I started growing plants in general 10 (I guess it'd be 11 now) years ago.

July 2009 I found a Phal, foliage only no flower, for half price. It was still $17, but that's much better than $35, so I snagged it up. Took it to the counter and they rang it up. Came on the till as full price so I pointed out the half price sticker and they click clacked on the computer and 'fixed it'. I'd also bought a bag of dirt. The teller then tells me the total. $6 (ish). That really didn't sound right to me but I could figure out why (I think it'd been a long day) and the teller didn't notice so I paid and left.

I looked at my receipt when I got to my truck and turns out, the teller had voided the sale and the attempt to put the actual price in apparently failed, so I got my first Orchid for free. How exciting. My mother was totally jealous. I'll be honest, I felt a little guilty. But hey, it's still alive, so that's gotta count for something, though it hasn't flowered yet.

If you put the orchid in 'dirt', I'm surprised it's still alive. Hopefully by now you found out that they don't do well in dirt. Good price though.

Nick

In January 2008 the Home Depot sent me a coupon for a half price phalaenopsis orchid. I had no experience but thought it would be pretty to have at home. It became my hobby and now I have 20.

I seldom read 30 some posts on any subject. This one is fascinating!

Many times it was just one orchid that was gifted which led to our collection.

In the 90's, I belonged to a Garden Club where one (1) member was an orchid grower. I was interested in her Greenhouses (not orchids) when I visited her. Upon leaving she gave me a handful of sticks that had a few small leaves on the top, assuring me, that they were orchids and would bloom easily. I have no explanation why I kept the green bunch for 10 yrs., other than my incorrigible belief in hope.
A move later, I happened to come upon an orchid exhibition at the local mall. There I was told of the name of my 'orchid' and how to grow it. The following spring the Dendrobium Kingianum bloomed and a new hobby was born. Now, in a large basket, it fills the room with it's pleasant fragrance. It can also be blamed for a lot of money spent on orchids since, together with hours on end of research.
Funny, what we owe to an insignificant stick with a few leaves on top. Yes, Jane?

Helga.

I enjoyed reading everyone of your stories! :)

Mom had random phals in the house throughout my childhood and when they repeatedly fried into brown husks because they were too close to the window, I didn't even bat an eyelash. My relatively wealthy aunt regularly buys huge (expensive) white phals that she uses as decor in her upscale apartment...I remember plucking off the little 'balls' (buds) at the end of the 'sticks'(spikes) and then getting yelled at for doing so.

At Canada Blooms 2004, an annual gardening event, I was volunteering and happened to wander through the sales area as they were tearing down and thus selling everything for 50-70% off...picked up two phals in spike from a brand name garden centre and the rest is history!

i was at lowes late last summer and saw a rack of clearance plants. (like a magnet to me) while looking through the rack, i noticed several phaleonopsis orchids for $5 each. they apparently were clearanced because they were done blooming. i bought one that looked healthy and did a little research online. i read how to cut the old flower stalk and get a 50/50 chance for a rebloom.....it worked!!! i have since bought a few more. i always thought they would be really hard to grow, but with a little know how, they are really not that hard!

In 2003 I decided to buy an orchid for a friend, but instead of buying one I got two (one for myself). Both were phals from Home Depot. Somehow I overwatered my phal and it began dying relatively quickly, but I was ready for more, with the mentality that I would do better next time.

Probably close to 10 years ago if not more, a really good friend gifted me with a zygo. To say the least, that probably was not the best choice for a first time orchid grower,but I did keep it alive for a good 3 years. i bought rescues from Lowe's along the way,kept them going and doing well. I got up to something like 20 and then knew I had to join the Orchid Society to gather more knowledge. My orchids have been through 3 pregnancies, the majority of the time while pregnant I couldn't bare to water them because the smell from the potting media made me want to YARF! But we've both made it and I'm damn glad we did. When I mess with the orchids I can just sink into nothingness and just think "plants". I think the most I've had has been up to 70-80, but with children to take care of that gets to be a rather large number of plants for me to handle. I think I'm down to 43 right now. Maybe one day in a dreamland somewhere I'll have more in a greenhouse, ahhh but to dream!(or a shadehouse would be good too!)

"If you put the orchid in 'dirt', I'm surprised it's still alive. Hopefully by now you found out that they don't do well in dirt. Good price though.
Nick"

Oh no no no. Don't worry Nick. I know more than that. I bought the dirt for my million and a half other plants. I use Orchid bark for my Orchids. Wouldn't that be something if I could keep my Orchids alive in dirt? Poor things would probably hate me to the point of slapping me with their leaves every time I walked by.

Fun thread. Sakeofsilence - did you ever get the red-eyed tree frogs? They sound super.

One of the orchid books says that, if you can grow houseplants, you can grow orchids. To me, it sounded the same as my mom's statement that, if you can read, you can cook. Believing her, I'd become a good cook years earlier, and I believed that orchid guy.

In 2002, at a garden/craft chain store, I bought a purple NOID Phal and put it near sliding glass doors that faced E/SE - no lights, no air circulation, no extra humidity - no nothing. Sure enough, it rebloomed numerous times, sitting there among the houseplants.

A couple of years later, a staff person at a local garden center said that, if the Phal was reblooming, I could grow many different types of orchids in the house. I literally got chills of excitement. She said there was a commercial grower in the area - turned out to be Orchids Limited.

It was a freezing cold February night. I raced home to get directions to this place and drove up to the one greenhouse you can see into from the parking lot. Magical magic beyond magic! Lights were on inside, and the water rivulets on the windows made the blossoms and leaves inside look like a Cubist painting.

The next day, I left the office early to get back there before closing. If you've ever walked into a luscious greenhouse when you were brand new to orchids and when it was about 0F degrees outside, you may know what I'm talking about. The warm, damp air. The verdant scents making introductions to your nose. The sights that thrill your third eye, to say nothing of the other two. And the sound of water falling into a pool when everything outside is brittle and frozen.

Jerry Fischer (and later son Jason Fischer) was gracious and patient in answering unending questions from a complete novice. I bought a few plants, once we established my growing conditions. And then... and then... the annual AOS Show came to Minneapolis that April, 2004. Oh. My. Gosh. My senses were overwhelmed, and I had to take regular breaks to come back to earth from the overload.

DH has been supportive in his way, asking what good are the orchids if we can't eat them. When I walked in w/ more, he groaned in jest, saying they were just more mouths to feed. But then, I asked him to spray the mounties a few times when I was away, and he was terrified he'd harm them somehow. Good guy.

Before I lost all energy, give-a-sh--, and orchid love from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) last fall, few plants had just up and died, perhaps because I researched and read, plus grilled vendors on orchids' growing requirements before buying, trying to make sure my place was a good match.

For a couple of years, I had 120+ orchids in the house and then cut back. Who knows how many of the current 70-80 will make it after not being watered and otherwise neglected for about the last 3 months, but the SAD symptoms are lessening slowly. Maybe one of these days, the 'chids will seem a joy again, rather than a burden and source of guilt. I'd offer them to folks, but they all may die in the next few months, plus I have zero energy to pack them up.

May the Orchid Angels smile on us all and those gorgeous beings. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Nude Descending a Staircase; Marcel Duchamp, Cubist